Acupuncture normalized hypertension. Posted by Dr.Arthur Fan

Many patients choose anti-hypertension medications when diagnosed with hypertension. Many medical professionals also suggest patients with hypertension use such medications as soon as possible, and as long as possible. The reason being to prevent heart, brain and kidney complications caused by long-term and/or very high hypertension.

However, it would benefit patients with the stage one hypertension to seek non-medication treatment first. At stage one, hypertension is more related to the imbalance of a patients’ autonomic nervous system; the high activity of sympathic nerve and low activity of vagus nerve. This imbalance can be corrected by one or more of the following: resting, meditation(such as Tai ji, Qigong or meditation-like yoga), acupuncture, or Chinese herbology. A lower sodium diet will also help to some extent.

Recently, there are have been few patients with hypertension who came to see me. One patient had hypertension for about four months prior the her visit due to high stress. Her father was very ill and passed away. She flew to his hospital prior to his death and stayed there to take care of him for many days. She did not get enough sleep and her BP was consistently 140-160/90-110mmHg. When she came to me, her BP was 150/85mmHg. I gave her an acupuncture treatment, and after half hour’s treatment, her BP lowered to 126/86mmHg. I gave her an herbal pill, Jia Wei Xiao Yao Wan to use at home for one week. Today, she saw me again and reported that her BP was very stable-about 124/86mmHg(we confirmed this data). I treated her with acupuncture once again, and she admitted to feeling very relaxed.

Another patient who already has had stage two hypertension for a few years came to my office recently. She has been using acupuncture and herbs, and her blood pressure has also returned to normal.